St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-01-23
SOCH AR.HSN.
No Monopoly, Financial or POiiti.
cal. Should be INC Cry.


To the Editor of the Globe:
1t is rampant everywhere. Just now it
suits me to notice the fact that it is taking
the lead in our halls of legislation. For the
truth of this assertion l refer your read ers
to the daily reports of legislative remedies.
The particular instance of socialistic pro-
gress here to be noticed is the one brought
forward by lgnatIuS Donnelly, in his speech
on Thursday on his proposed constitutional
amendment making it unlawful for any one
to form a combination to buy up products
of the country" with view of course, to mo-
nOpOliStic speculation.
Mr.. Donnelly says: 1.-The great funda-
mental truth lying at the base of all law is
that for every wrong there shall be a legal
remedy" Well, there ought to be a remedy
for wrongs of every kind and there are, in
this world or the next (such is my faith),
bat Mr. Donnelly refers to legal remedies,
and [ am not satisfied that he is right.
do not think it possible for the ingenuity of
the best million of lawmakers or of the
best selection of dozen, a score or a hun
dred of that million. TO furnish legal Spe-
citic for the wrongs Springing up spOn-
tapeOrSly in society, as now constructed on
the anti-Social basis of competitive warfare.
Failure. therefore, with aggravating dis
appointment, must follow the effort to
patch up our often ruptured social arrange
ments. after legal fashion. AS a socialist
] protest that MIR. Donnelly'S socialism is
too rank for me- That these legal interfer-
ences with the laws of trade; that these at
temptS to make man moral, temperate.
just, by law are Socialistic in their very ma
ture; that they are. Ill fact. tending rapidly
to the EXTREMIST forms of socialism. is a
foo NV al If H.
ject. At the present rate of piling up legal
enactments the state will be all in all and
the individual nothing. If | am to be hedged
up on every side, imprisoned as it were,
in order to prevent somebody from trusting
me, | am not much better off than the fell
lows who are jagged for trying to injure me.
The laws relating to the preservation OF
game fetter and seriously damage the very
people who wanted them passed. a man
living on one of the smaller lakes can
hardly catch a whitetish without exposing
himself to prosecution. This is a hastily
picked up illustration, but it will do.
The Scientific American says there is a
race between rogueS and inventOrs-the
former striving to unlock or, in some other
way enter the supposed safe keepers of
our valuables-the rogues generally ahead.
So it is with legal enactmentS. "A coach
and six" says Lord EIdon, twill
90 through the strongest of them.
Periurers and other villains can protect
themselves against the best-made laws, and
all honest men can get no redress unless
they have money in abundance with which
to pay the increasingly heavy expenses of
legal settlements.
The true socialist is for less law and for
more individual freedom: he disowns the
responsibility for the centraliZing tendencies
of the present day. and would substitute a
workable and working social system III
which peace justice and selfinterest would
be united for the benefit of the whole family
of man. AS Rev. Washington GLADDEN. so
clearly shows. our social system is not social
in character 1t is the very opposite; it is
war and produces all the evils of war; in
GLIDING despotism, to the absolute loss of
individual freedom. All attempts to mend
it. leaving in active operation the yilprin-
ciple at the bottom of it, must end IN al
least partial disappointment
Nv contlision is. that while the laboring
classes should accept and use the best
remedies to be granted by our legislature,
they should look deeper and higher. They
should prepare for social recon,
struction that would stand and be
solid without the buttresses now
found necessary. The new world of the
mast, the phlanthropst and the Christian,